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The Culture Show

BBC2 - 5/13 Tuesday 01 July 10:00pm - 10:30pm



New series of the arts and culture programme, presented by Lauren Laverne and Mark Kermode. Celebrating the sixtieth anniversary of George Orwell's 1984, we form a book group consisting entirely of ex Big Brother contestants to discuss the work, chaired by literary critic and ex Celebrity Big Brother housemate Germaine Greer. The panellists, including 'nasty' Nick Bateman, ex-Tory candidate Derek Laud and Aisleyne Horgan Wallace, discuss the parallels between the Orwellian nightmare and their own experiences in the house. Also, London DJ and musician Bishi, whose unique sound fuses English, Bengali and Bulgarian music, gives us behind -the -scenes access to rehearsals for her most audacious collaboration yet - with the London Symphony Orchestra. Fellow DJ Nihal talks to Bishi and members of the LSO about the collaboration which is part of Eclectica, an LSO soundscapes project which brings together artists from vastly different styles and backgrounds. Plus tightrope walker Phillippe Petit joins Mark and Lauren in the studio to discuss the extraordinary new documentary Man on Wire, which tells the story of Petit's audacious wire walk between New York's twin towers back in the 1970s. The gripping tale of how it was planned and carried out won the film the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award at this year's Sundance Festival. Petit himself is an extraordinary autodidact who taught himself magic, drawing, fencing, horseback riding, bullfighting, five languages and finally tightrope walking, after being legally emancipated by his parents while in his teens. Music comes from The Raconteurs, the band formed by Detroit neighbours Jack White and Brendan Benson, who will be in the studio to perform a track from their new album, Consolers Of The Lonely, and to talk to Lauren in the studio.



Radiotimes

I'll have to try and get somebody to tape that.

Nasty Nick still gets work?

Perhaps unfairly, I'd imagine he has more of relevance to contribute to this type of thing than Aisleyne. I could be wrong of course.

I don't know, Derek always offers a good soundbite or 2 for these shows, Aisleyne has kept herself in the tabloid spotlight one way or another so is reasonably well known, but Nick is just a bloke who wrote some letters on a bit of paper and lied a little. As shown by his appearance on Back To Reality afterwards, he really has nothing to offer apart from that.

Don't you think he might have more knowledge or understanding of Orwell than Aisleyne?

Well he can probably spell it unlike her, but I doubt that makes him a good person to talk about it. Jean Claude Van Damme has been in more movies than Barry Norman but I know which one I'd rather listen to on the subject.

Knowledge, possibly - although he might just have pretended to read the book.

Understanding? I don't buy into the theory that education necessarily brings understanding. There's an awful lot of thick 'intellectuals' out there.

Not that I've anything much against Nick - God bless him, he was harmless enough, in comparison to the new breed of BB 'villains'.

Aye, he was. And you're right - there are. I just wonder why they've asked Aisleyne.

A wrote an essay on 1984 and Animal Farm for my English Lit A level and no one blinkin' asked me to contribute. I wonder if it's a baps out thing.

Sorry to ask?
But does Channel 4's Big Brother show which only exists because it succeeded commercially in the current British TV environment have anything to do with George Orwell? I don't think so.
State sponsored Big Brother is a totally different thing.

It made me laugh after Dennis' eviction to see housemates in the Diary Room being questioned about their actions by Endemol's main man & producer, Phil Edgar-Jones, & referring to him as 'Big Brother'.
As most of them know, he is a television executive!

OK, Big Brother made an ironic star of cowardly Jade because the media felt guilty about attacking her; it gave The Daily Star group, Nuts magazine, etc. a few 'glamour' models & gave a few 'BB stars' a space in celebrity magazines like Heat, OK!,etc. - hardly anything to do with Orwell.

Z-list celebrity culture is the real offspring of Big Brother - though there is an obsession with BB losers on the internet which always make me chuckle.

my head hurts

Oh! the quaility of guests they've managed to get from the 100 or so ex-housemates.

Makes me laugh out Laud. Jim Royale would have been a better guest - Culture Show - My Arse!

Jade was on holiday